FRESHLY MADE BUTTER!

I haven't made butter since Kindergarten!  That's almost 50 years ago!  I saw a dude making it on Martha Stewart earlier this week.  He had a big fancy contraption...a modern butter churn (it was motorized).  It got me to thinking about some hot bread with fresh sweet cream butter dripping down the sides.  Yummmmm.

I looked at the Martha web site but only found a recipe for the rolls...guess they didn't think people would really make butter....or maybe I didn't look far enough.  Anyway, I think there is a tutorial for just about everything on youtube these days, so I went there and searched "how to make butter" and the first thing that came up was a real interesting guy who was using the process to teach the science behind the butter...so to speak.  I watched it all the way through.  Very cool!  I learned stuff I didn't know and it made me want to go shake some cream!

In Kinder I recall we made the butter standing in a small "kitchen area" of the church classroom.  It was almost like a hallway and I remember it clearly.  All the little people squeezed into a fairly tight area, taking turns shaking a jar with cream in it and seeing it turn to solids as each person got a try.  They spread it on toast I think...that part is not as clear...but I remember it tasted really good.  It was exciting...but I never considered doing it myself at home.  Who knows why...just didn't.

Today, however, I pulled out the last bit of some cream that was in a quart container in the fridge.  Poured it into a bowl that had a very tight lid (I don't save jars and didn't want to risk a plastic container's lid coming lose and sloshing this stuff all over the house).  In the video he said to let it sit for 12 hours...but I only had about 4 hours until dinner time, so it got to sit about 3 1/2 hours.  At least it was room temperature.

He said it would only take about 3 minutes...it took me 5 minutes before my arms were tired and I recruited the teen to continue shaking.  He begrudgingly did it...with the comment "why can't we just eat the butter in the refrigerator?"  Because I WANT to make it, I snapped (somewhat tired after 5 minutes of purposeful shaking).  He shrugged and closed the door to his room and I could hear the shaking going on so I went to set the timer.  Before the 5 minutes ended, he appeared and said "how much longer Moooommmm"...in that long drawn out way only a whiny teen can say their mother's name.  I could see the butter had formed now and said "okay, I think it's done" with an excited tone to my voice.  He rolled his eyes and left...I called him back.  Come on, don't you want to see the butter.  Let's take a picture.  Oh heavens to mergatroids...you'd think I'd asked him to climb the Himalayas in the dead of Winter. "Mom, I really don't care about the butter".  Tough - I want you to see it...it is interesting.  More rolling eyes but he stayed.

The butter formed and sitting in buttermilk

I showed him how you drain off the buttermilk, rinse the butter, and ta-da...there's the butter!  Thoroughly unimpressed he says "can I go now?".  Yeah, fine.

Buttermilk drained from the container into another container

Ready to be rinsed

So, I made a loaf of refrigerated dough (Pillsbury's) Italian Bread to go with dinner and sliced it hot out of the oven.  I set the butter out next to it.  The boy ate FOUR PIECES slathered in the butter...begrudgingly saying "it's good". <sigh>

Ready to spread!

I did add a tiny bit of salt.  It was good but it didn't taste as buttery as I remembered from Kindergarten.  I think I'm used to salted butter because it tasted wonderful once I added just the tiniest little pinch of some fine sea salt and stirred it in.  Yum... I ate two pieces of bread myself!

If you have kids, you should show them how to do this.  Watch the video linked above with them, and I guarantee they will want to do this "experiment"...so long as they aren't teen-agers :-)))

There's not much of a recipe...but I'll write down what we did.

BUTTER

1 cup heavy cream
1 pinch fine sea salt

Leave cream out for 12 hours if possible, but at least to room temperature.
Pour into impeccably clean jar or any container that has room for the contents to be shaken and has a tight lid.
Shake methodically for anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes...you will see the cream separating and the butter beginning to form ... it looks curdly and the cream stops coating the sides of the container.  Once the liquid begins to look thinner than cream, I deemed it "done".

Carefully pour off buttermilk and save in refrigerator for later use.

Add some cool water to the butter container and "rinse" the butter and drain off that liquid as well.

Add a small pinch of salt to butter and stir with spoon.

Serve on hot biscuits or bread for best flavor!

Yum yum - that was delectable!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!